Deadly Indonesia Military Plane Crash Kills 4

An Indonesian air force plane crashed into a house on the main island of Java Wednesday, killing both people on board and two people in the house, an official said.

The Brazilian-made Embraer EMB 314 Super Tucano light attack plane was on a routine training flight when it crashed close to the Abdul Rahman Saleh air force base in Malang around 10:45 am local time, air force chief Air Marshal Agus Supriatna confirmed, according to the Associated Press.

Supriatna said the pilot ejected from the plane, but a technician failed to do so. The pilot was found dead over a mile away from his parachute, while the technician’s body was recovered from the plane’s cockpit buried in the rubble. Supriatna added that a man and a woman living in the house died while being treated at a hospital.

The commander of the air force base, Col. Djoko Senoputro, said the crash occurred some 30 hours after maintenance had been completed.

“The aircraft was performing a test flight at 25,000 feet and then descended to 15,000 feet. After the pilot requested clearance to descend to 8,000 feet, we lost contact with the aircraft. Ten minutes later, the aircraft reportedly crashed into a house,” Djoko said during a live phone interview with local BeritaSatu TV.

Indonesia had ordered 16 Super Tucano aircraft from Embraer Defense and Security in two batches – first in 2010 and then in 2014 – as part of its ongoing modernization efforts, with the planes designed primarily for light attack, surveillance, aerial intercepts, and counterinsurgency missions.

The Air Force said it would conduct a probe into the crash, which is just the latest of several military aviation accidents to hit the country. Last July, the air force experienced one of the deadliest accidents in its history when a C-130 B Hercules plane crashed just two minutes after it took off from an air force base, hitting a busy road and killing 109 passengers and 12 crew along with 22 people on the ground (See: “Indonesia’s Deadly Air Force Plane Crash”).